Acrophobia
Joe Rotondo
I have long been possessed by a deathly fear of heights and high places. While I am sure that I am not alone in this sentiment, I can say with utter confidence that there are none who share my reasons- for if there were, I fear that the vast expanse of human knowledge regarding life as we know it would be eviscerated, and mankind as a whole would find extinction preferable than survival and possession of such cursed information. Regardless, though in the best of circumstances I will be thought mad, and in the worst, I will bring about the destruction of humanity (or, at the very least human sanity), I can no longer bear to keep the unholy and indescribable horror which has for so long gripped me a secret.
Most who endure my condition (commonly referred to as “acrophobia,” though in truth my fear is not so easily given such substance) suffer so because of their fear of a rapid return to the earth from whence they came (as they would, in all probability, become a red smear indistinguishable from the soil itself upon impact, I feel a certain morbid pleasure in quoting the following: “We therefore commit this body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust”.)
Acrophobia in its base form is, of course, a reasonable fear, and as such I do not scoff at those who are caught in its vice. However, if those individuals who suffer from it were made aware of what, precisely, shared their airspace whilst high above the ground, be it in an airplane or a skyscraper, it is certain they would eagerly fling themselves to the earth and their merciful demise, rather than remain in the presence of the nameless terrors which haunt our atmosphere.
Perhaps it would be best to tell of the origin of my phobia, and the reason for which I scarcely dare to look upward, save for when there is a roof over my head.
My family has a heavy background in the military, particularly in flight and air combat. My grandfather served in the Great War as a reconnaissance pilot, and my father followed in his footsteps with his aerial exploits in the Second World War. Growing up, their legends constantly in my ear, it seemed as though my future was predestined. I joined the Air Force in 1957 and worked hard to live up to my heritage. I was moderately successful at this, rose quickly through the ranks, and in 1961 was entrusted to test out a new type of flight suit, specifically engineered to allow flight at higher altitudes than ever before in the history of humanity. I leapt to my task with enthusiasm, and eagerly anticipated the day of the suit’s testing.
The suit itself looked no different than any other one I had worn in my years of flying, but I assumed that the improvements which set it apart from its predecessors were below the surface. Eager to begin my task, I slid into the cockpit of my F-4 (yes, my F-4, or as my squadron called her, the Icarus. A true thing of beauty, with a white-and-burgundy paint job specially commissioned by myself, and detailings of feathers on her wings, harkening back to the old tale; a prize earned for my prowess and as a reward for my high ranking. Far too precious to risk in a dogfight, I only flew her in non-combat situations, such as this). I gazed up at the deep blue of the sky and noted the unusual shapes the clouds made as they sailed across it, swirling and turning this way and that, as a ship through a stormy ocean. I peeked out my window and saw my commanding officer standing by with a clipboard, ready to give the order to commence the testing process.
At the wave of his hand, I flashed a quick thumbs-up, flipped switches, turned knobs, pressed buttons, and took off without any further encouragement. I soared eagerly up toward the troposphere, gazing through my cockpit window at the swiftly shrinking airfield below. I flew higher and higher, and the suit hummed around me as it integrated with the pressurization settings of my cockpit. As I burst through the cloud layer, my elation mounted alongside me, seeming to correspond with my altitude.
Higher still I climbed, sailing upward toward the rapidly darkening sky. The heavens opened before me, and I began to see the edges of the horizon gently slope away. I thought to myself that the notion of space travel (an idea being floated by my superior officers, one I ordinarily scoffed at in private) was perhaps not so far-fetched. After all, the suit worked like a charm- if I closed my eyes, I could imagine standing on terra firma, breathing just as easily as I did now. A burst of static and chatter from my radio startled me out of my reverie.
“How’s it going up there?”
Flipping on my comms, I said with a smile, “The suit’s working just fine, sir. I could stay up here all day. You might have to send Carruthers up with some box lunches, though.”
A short bark of laughter squawked through the radio, but then it fizzled and died before I could hear my commanding officer’s reply. Frowning, I looked down at the radio and tapped it a few times, before I realized the implications of what had just occurred. The radio, itself a specially-crafted tool for the testing of this suit, was designed to carry a signal for a radius equivalent to the maximum altitude expected of the suit. In layman’s terms, it was supposed to work for as long as my flight suit was. I had flown too high- or so I initially thought.
Despite the death of my radio, I did not feel lightheaded, nor did any of the gauges in my cockpit indicate that the pressurization of my suit was failing. Maybe this thing works better than they imagined it would, I thought to myself. Well, what the hell. Let’s see just how good it really is. With that damnable thought, I sealed my fate. Instead of descending to reconnect with my commanding officer, I flew upward, pushing through the black winds whipping at my cockpit and ignoring the growing sense of vertigo I felt in my stomach. I soared up through the inky blackness with a grim determination, feeling the Icarus begin to shudder beneath me and pushing onward in spite of it. I gazed through the blackness out my cockpit window and felt my heart freeze in my chest.
As if it were a dream, suddenly they were before me. They made no noise when they appeared, and indeed it seemed as though they had always been there, but out of sight. They surrounded me on all sides, leviathans taller than any building, taller than God, even. Nameless beings older than mankind, perhaps more ancient than the Earth itself. To describe their appearance would be nothing short of verbal suicide, but nevertheless, I shall endeavor to do so.
These creatures which loomed in my sight no doubt were the evolutionary origin of fear, primal beings whose mere presence cast shame to the terrors which lurked in the darkest recesses of my mind. Their bodies were maddeningly tall, stretching for miles - nay, leagues - to the ground far below me, with their massive heads (if they could be called heads- great, bulging tumors with tentacles they resembled) seeming to turn slowly, revolving on necks like redwood trees. Strangely angled appendages poked out of these great stalks, here and there, irregular and sickening in their irregularity. I cannot describe their coloration; indeed, they seemed to defy the idea of color itself, being above it as a concept. I cannot fathom their origin, nor for how long they have stood, quietly out of sight, lurking in the heavens above with the great trunks of their bodies invisible from the ground. Who can say from whence they came, whether they had just arrived, or had always been here but unseen; vague, shimmering outlines visible only in the thinner atmosphere where I now resided?
Such was my terror at the sudden appearance of these beings, these pillars of insanity, that I shrieked and vomited into my flight mask. My eyes rolled up into my head, and the last thing I recall is the great, bulbous head of one of these creatures revolving slowly, in my direction I assumed, with its mindless, probing tentacles making their way through the air toward me.
***
The Icarus was unsalvageable, they told me, as I lay in my hospital bed and writhed in a fugue of horror. She had come careening down toward the earth as I slumped, unconscious, in the cockpit. It was only through her automated ejection programming that my life was spared - a parting gift from her, I suppose, as she plummeted toward fire and destruction.
Nobody would believe my ravings. From the information taken from the Icarus’s black box (the only thing salvaged from the wreckage save for a small chunk of twisted metal, bearing the likeness of a scorched feather, that I keep in remembrance of her), they told me that the suit gave out shortly after my radio died. Apparently, my oxygen supply was cut off, and unconsciousness followed soon after. They tell me that I was a damned fool, and that I was lucky to be alive. But I know the truth. And I know from the strange markings on my souvenir, markings that could never have been made by a mere plane crash, what I saw when I dared to fly toward the sun.